2014 Goals: Streamlining The Process Part 1

I find goals are far more likely to be successful when you allow time to let the old goals develop beyond what you intended and see where they take you and then make goal setting more of an active process to manage rather than a single event that could otherwise overwhelm. Goal setting around New Year’s day I feel has become more of a marketing ploy and a distraction if anything from what you really want to accomplishment. So what I like to do is let the old play out for awhile. Then I start with a relatively unspecific long term goal that I observe my past works progressing towards. In this case it is “streamlining the investment/trading process”.

It is certainly not the only goal as constant improvement, education, and improving my ability to carry out the strategies more efficiently and effectively are other important trading goals. But by limiting it to just one general concept, I can apply the focus this year towards it. That is a “big picture” idea as the spreadsheet will help me with just one of those elements which is analyzing and managing risks with more precision in what I can expect. From this idea I can begin work on aspects of it, for awhile. Based upon how much I can get done in a sample period, how much time I can spend per week, and how much I have to do… I can then have a goal that reflects reality.

Setting financial goals is a bit tricky as it involves chance and uncertainty, but setting financial goals is something that can be done as you can see here.

So from that I have a number of ideas as how different elements may coordinate together to help me streamline the process. First I need to sort out some of the ideas of things I want in a perfect world
1)Market analysis, Sector Analysis and Industry Analysis.
2)Using the above, develop a Ranking or Grading Systems of individual stocks based upon UNIQUE classifications on whether or not the market, sector, industry, and classification of stock and market cap size are currently “in phase” currently, “on deck” or “not in phase”, that has DIFFERENT applications/formulas for ranking them according to the particular TYPE/classification of stock it is AND what stage it and the industry/sector is in.
3)A tool that can quickly look at both stock and option pricing and a manual assessment of expectation, probability and timing to compare risk/rewards and analyze the effects of using any one particular option with the others and with the stock and position sizing.
4)An ability to take the inputs and add it to the trading journal spreadsheet where I can track and manage the various allocations by a number of categorical breakdowns if wanted.
5)A more multifaceted trading simulator which considers multiple, simultaneous and overlapping approaches on different timelines and compares strategies of shifting allocation towards each strategy, adjusting risk and adding/reducing capital from your account over time.
6)Ultimately a more flexible, dynamical approach to allocation that not only has the flexibility to adjust to maintain certain general allocations without having to sell individual positions short of their targets to do so, but also adapt in their allocations according to the behavior and numbers and relates expectations from every asset class or strategy allocation to others as well as future opportunity.
7)Summarize all the data in order to factor in everything (fees, risk tolerance, alternative investments, expectation) and quickly convert the data into a recommendation based upon my own inputs to optimize the portfolio.

This will be a process that will take a lot of time in developing, that will likely be an ongoing project over the next few years, so I have to make the spreadsheet flexible enough to be able to change with my strategies and positions and expectations, so very few elements will be “set in stone” and most will be inputs which I can change and very few assumptions will be made that are fixed.